Surrender Becomes Her (27 page)

Considering everything, Marcus suspected that—God forbid!—if he had ever found himself in Hugh’s position he would probably have done the same; done everything within his power to see that his son didn’t suffer for his father’s mistake. Or that the woman he loved was not shamed before the world. He didn’t blame Hugh for wanting to protect Roseanne and to insure his son’s position in the world. As for Edmund becoming the next Lord Manning? Isabel was right: none of them had been prepared for the deaths of Robert and Georgine. Scowling, he stared down at his bare feet showing beneath the hem of his robe. He wanted to rage against someone; wanted to vilify Hugh, for all the lost years, but he could not. Isabel might have lived a lie, might have passed off another woman’s son as her own, but had any real wrong been done? Roseanne Halford would have been an eminently acceptable bride for Hugh, and if they had been married, Edmund would have been Lord Manning’s legitimate grandson, the legitimate heir to the barony. Was anyone going to be harmed by allowing the lie to continue?

For a moment, he considered the implications for Garrett Manning, then shrugged. Garrett was wealthy enough on his own; he didn’t need Lord Manning’s estate or money. And while Garrett might have enjoyed a title, from what he knew of the man, Marcus imagined that it didn’t matter much one way or another to him.

He took a swallow of brandy. There wasn’t much of a decision for him to make, he realized. He’d already made his choice the moment he had destroyed all evidence of Isabel’s virginity. He smiled wryly. Besides, he was hardly going to
complain
that his wife had been a virgin.

Her gaze fixed painfully on his face, Isabel asked, “What are you going to do?”

He smiled gently at her. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. As far as the world—and myself included—is concerned, Edmund is your son.”

Isabel burst into tears. “Oh, Marcus! Thank you! You cannot know how I have feared…” Her voice suspended by tears, she could only stare at him, relief from the terror of discovery that she had lived with all these years suddenly overwhelming.

Marcus bit back a curse and setting down his snifter, jerked her into his arms. “Hush,” he murmured. “Hush.” He shook her gently. “You little goose! How could you believe that I would ever do anything that would harm you or Edmund?” He caught a tear on one fingertip. “I love him, too. I would never want him to suffer the stigma of being labeled Hugh’s bastard, or watch the joy die in the old man’s eyes.”

Gulping back sobs, Isabel buried her head against his chest. In a muffled voice, she sniffed, “I did trust you, you know. It was just that it had been my secret for so long that I d-d-didn’t know what to do. Everyone else was dead and there was no one I could talk to about it.” With tear-drenched eyes she looked up at him. “I promised Hugh and Roseanne,” she said thickly. “On the day Roseanne died, we swore together that no one would ever know the truth. And Hugh and I vowed that as far as the world knew, Edmund was
our
child.”

Marcus kissed her on the forehead and, settling down with her in his arms in one of the chairs by the fire, he asked quietly, “Roseanne died in childbirth?”

He felt rather than saw the nod of her head. “It was a difficult, difficult birth.” She trembled and his arms tightened around her. “There was so much blood and she was in such pain and so frightened. There was a physician, Mr. Evans, but he could do nothing. It was a long, hard labor and she was exhausted by the time Edmund was born. We laid him in her arms and she kissed him, begged me to swear that I would never reveal the truth, and then just slipped away from us.”

“How did you manage to hide what was going on? Surely
you met Hugh’s friends and colleagues, such as our friend Major Whitley?”

Isabel shook her head. “No, not until after Edmund was born. Once we all agreed that Edmund was to be my son, within days of our arrival in Bombay, Hugh removed us to the high country where we would have more privacy and not have to worry about the British residents in the city. During those first months, Hugh discouraged visitors, giving out that I was sickly and unable to receive visitors, but that as soon as the baby arrived, I’d be back in Bombay and eager to meet everyone.” The worst of her tears over, she nestled her head on his shoulder and said, “Roseanne’s death devastated Hugh. We buried her very quietly near the house where we lived; Hugh owned several hundred acres there. After she died Hugh informed everyone in Bombay that my companion that had accompanied me from England had died from one of the fevers. It was horrible for him. He had lost the love of his life, yet he had to pretend that everything was wonderful and that he was joyfully anticipating the birth of his first child.” Her gaze far away, she murmured, “When we buried her, his grief was so new and raw, I was terrified that he would throw himself into the grave with her. I know that only the fact that Edmund was alive kept him from doing so.” She sat up a little straighter and brushed the tears from her eyes. In a stronger voice she went on, “Evans’s knowledge that the baby’s mother had died terrified us, but we could do nothing about it. He was a taciturn man and kept to himself and seldom left the area where we were. Even if he spoke out, it would be our word against his and why would I claim as my son another woman’s child?” She sighed. “His knowledge gnawed at us, but we didn’t want to make the situation worse by offering him money to keep his mouth shut. We just had to trust that fate would help us.”

“Rather risky, wasn’t it?”

“Terribly. But at the time we could think of no way to lessen the risk.”

“You don’t think that Whitley talked to him? And what he learned from Evans isn’t what set him on your trail?”

She shook her head. “No, I’m almost positive it could not be. Evans drowned the following year during the rainy season trying to cross a river, and to my knowledge Whitley and Evans never met each other.”

Evans’s knowledge of the truth bothered Marcus, but he suspected that if Whitley had actually talked to the man and knew that it was the companion who had given birth and not Hugh’s wife, he would have been bolder in his attempts to blackmail Isabel. His actions smacked of a man without a very strong hand.

Breaking into his thoughts, Isabel said, “We kept Edmund’s birth a secret for nearly six weeks and then Hugh had to pretend that his son had just been born, all the while mourning Roseanne’s loss. And because Edmund was supposedly born six weeks later than he really had been, I had to remain in seclusion for several more weeks before I could return to Bombay with my one-month-old child.” She smiled reminiscently. “For the first year of his life everyone marveled at how
big
he was for his age.”

“You didn’t resent the position you were put in?” Marcus asked with a lifted brow.

Isabel shook her head. “I loved Edmund from the moment he was born and I loved his mother. I made a promise to her to always protect him, but it was an easy promise to keep.”

“I notice you said that you loved Edmund and Roseanne, but you didn’t mention that you loved Hugh. Didn’t you?” As he waited for her answer, jealousy clawed in his chest and he was ashamed of his emotions.

“I did love Hugh,” Isabel admitted, “but more as a big brother. He was always kind and considerate of me.” She looked at the fire, her thoughts far away. “I can’t say what might have happened if he had lived. I would never have been the love of his life and he would never have been mine,
but we might have managed to make a pleasant life together and make our marriage real eventually.”

Marcus didn’t like the empty hole in his gut that her words caused. He might have studiously avoided her this past decade but there had always been a part of him that had been glad that she had been living at Manning Court, a part of him that had been tantalizingly aware that she had no husband….

“What about the locket?” he asked abruptly.

“It was Roseanne’s. If you study the face of it, you can see in the midst of all the filigree work, her initials, RH.” She frowned. “I have no idea how Whitley came across it. I can only assume that Hugh had kept it, unable to destroy it as we did everything else of hers, and that Whitley, with his constant snooping around, found it.”

Marcus nodded. “That would make sense.” He glanced down at her. “Are you ever going to let me see what is in the locket?”

She flushed. “Of course! Would you like me to get it for you?”

“Yes.”

Isabel scrambled from his lap and, trailed by Marcus, walked quickly into her bedroom. She walked up to a dainty desk that had come with her from Manning Court. Opening one of the drawers, she removed it and, reaching into the back of the desk, found the spring that opened the secret compartment. Reaching into the compartment, her fingers found the locket and she brought it forth.

Looking at Marcus, she said, “I thought of just putting it in my jewelry box and having Lord Manning keep it in his safe, but I feared…” She shrugged helplessly. “This was the safest place I could think of to hide it.”

She handed him the locket and, for a moment, Marcus just held it, staring at the filigree work. Isabel was right. If one looked hard enough and, he thought wryly, knew what to
look for, one could make out the entwined initials of RH. With a flick of his finger, he opened the locket. On each side of the locket was a beautifully painted miniature; one of a man, the other a woman. He recognized Hugh Manning immediately. The woman, he assumed, was Roseanne Halford.

He glanced at Isabel. “Hugh and Roseanne?”

“Yes. Hugh had the portraits commissioned and bought the locket just before her father denied his suit. He had meant the locket to be a betrothal gift—one of many. When Roseanne’s father rejected him, Hugh gave her the locket anyway, hoping that…” She sighed. “I don’t know what he hoped, but he gave it to her just before he returned to Manning Court and prepared to sail to India.”

Marcus studied the portrait, thinking that Roseanne had been a pretty girl and he understood now how strangers could mistake Isabel and Roseanne for each other. Like Isabel, Roseanne had red hair; it was not the vivid red of Isabel’s glossy locks, but a lighter shade of auburn. Someone who knew the two women would be unlikely to mistake one of them for the other, but they shared enough similarities to fool the unfamiliar. Roseanne’s eyes were blue and her features lacked the vitality and verve that characterized Isabel’s, but again, a passing acquaintance could be forgiven for mistaking the two. Marcus smiled to himself. Of course, he was probably prejudiced—never in a million years could he have mistaken Roseanne for Isabel.

He looked at Isabel and asked, “Was she similarly built?”

Isabel nodded. “She was perhaps an inch or two taller than I am, but you wouldn’t notice it unless we were standing side by side.” Reluctantly, she admitted, “Roseanne was also more, er, rounded than I am.”

Marcus walked across to her. Tipping her chin up, he said huskily, “My sweet, you are round enough to please any man.” He brushed his lips across hers. “Your, er, roundness certainly pleases me.”

Isabel blushed, but it was one of delight. “Th-th-thank you,” she stammered.

Marcus laughed and pulled her into his arms. “No, don’t thank me. You have an enticing little body and visions of you naked in my bed have bedeviled me for days.”

Isabel would have preferred to continue this very gratifying conversation, but the locket and what Marcus intended to do with it preyed on her mind. Stepping away from him, she asked, “Now that you have seen the locket and what it holds, what do you propose to do with it?”

He, too, would have preferred to dwell on her charms and their effect on him—this was, after all, their wedding night—but the existence of the locket and what it represented pushed ideas of further dalliance with his bride away for the time being.

Frowning, Marcus stared down at the locket still clasped in his fingers. “The locket proves nothing but that Hugh had been enamored of Roseanne prior to his marriage to you, but its very existence in the wrong hands could raise all sorts of doubts about Edmund’s parentage.”

“Especially if someone like Whitley started gossiping,” Isabel said unhappily, “about how I and my companion disappeared almost immediately upon our arrival in Bombay to Hugh’s estate in the high lands.” An expression of fright crossed her face. “The whole tale hangs together as long as no one looks closely at the facts. Several of the servants that were at the Manning townhouse in London are still alive. Roseanne and I were very careful to hide her pregnancy and she was in the early days then, so I don’t think any of them even suspected,” she admitted. “But they did know of her unexpected arrival and the fact that I dismissed Mrs. Wesson and substituted Roseanne in her place.” She sighed. “As for Mrs. Wesson or the physician who first examined Roseanne or any others who might be able to remember those days before we sailed for Bombay, I know nothing of them or their
whereabouts. And the servants in India…we tried to keep them at a distance, but I’m sure some knew or guessed the truth. If Whitley talked to one of them—or more horrifying still, actually brought that person to England—the consequences would be horrible.”

“I don’t think we have to fear anyone from India appearing on our doorstep. If Whitley had someone who was actually there at the event, it would have given him a powerful hand, but from what you’ve told me, he never did more than imply he knew more and threatened you.” He glanced down at the locket. “I think this was all he had—besides the fact that you went into seclusion from the moment you landed in Bombay until you appeared with your son, which on the face of it is not unusual. Women of your station are always retiring to await the birth of their child.”

Isabel took an agitated step away from him. “I know what you say is true and I never believed”—she flashed him a faint smile—“in my darkest moment that Whitley had anything substantial. My fear was that he could, and would, create a whirlwind of gossip and speculation, and that for the rest of his life Edmund would have to endure the whispers about his birth. Most of the
ton
, after the first flurry of gossip, would ignore it, but questions would always linger and he would always have the stigma hanging over his head. I couldn’t let that happen.”